Page 32 of Sins of the Hidden

My fingers hovered, uselessly. Having never hesitated like this, I remained clueless about how to proceed. My arms moved slowly, until they closed around her. She sighed and melted closer—validation that I might be doing something right.

This was fucking dangerous. Weakness, giving something power over you—that's how you die in my world. I've killed men for less vulnerability than what was cracking open inside me now. Every killer instinct I had was screaming to run, to get distance, to not let this gentleness dig in any deeper. But I couldn't move. Couldn't pull away. Whatever was breaking in me felt better than remaining whole ever had.

If she begged me to go, I'd carve my fucking name into her delicate body so she never forgot what she threw away.

She belonged to me—not just her body but whatever this fucking feeling was that burned my center when she looked at me. No one would take that away—not her, her father, or anyone else.

My arms tightened around her, too hard, crushing her against my body. A soft gasp escaped her lips—should've made me loosen my grip, should've made me more gentle. Instead, it shot straight to my bloodstream like the purest form of addiction. Every second of holding her rewired something in my brain.

She looked up. Those green irises locked onto mine. Innocent. Pure. Something different flickered in her gaze—not terror, not wariness. Her lips parted, tongue darting out to wet the bottom one, leaving a glistening trail I couldn't look away from.

My stare locked onto her mouth. I was tempted to know what sound she'd make if I took her lips. Would she whimper? Fight?Would she give in and let me consume every innocent inch of her until there was nothing left that wasn't marked by me?

Her front door opened. "Oakley, we brought?—"

One second. That's all it took for everything to turn to shit.

The door hit the wall with a crack that echoed like gunfire—the sound of my perfect moment shattering. She went stiff in my arms, her whole body trembling against mine. The color draining from her face. Grocery bags crashed against hardwood as Claudia made a sound like she'd seen a ghost. Not a scream—like she'd finally caught the monster under her daughter's bed.

But all I could focus on was the soft tremor in her throat going wild. The way her fingers dug into my shirt, not asking for help—just trying to stay upright.

Law's line of sight locked on my grip around Oakley's waist. Something deadly crawled into his expression. Something worse than any look I'd seen on him in court, in combat, in all our years in this club together. The lawyer, the brother, the father—all three versions of him converged into something that might have made a lesser man back down.

His voice came low. "Get your fuckin' hands off my daughter before I break them."

Smoke and charred cedar clawed down my throat. My muscles still screamed from yesterday's spiral, a ghost of pain threading beneath skin that never quite forgot. Something heavy pressed against my torso—a weight anchoring me to consciousness as morning light sliced through half-drawn blinds.

My fingertips found it through the blanket—smooth in places, worn rough in others. Not fabric. Something alive with history. I slipped my hand free, touching it directly. My skin caught on deep, uneven ridges where time had carved its signature. As sunlight shifted, leather gleamed beneath my touch.

A cut.

Not just any cut.

V'scut.

I bolted upright, the weathered vest pooling in my lap like spilled secrets. Sweat beaded cold across my palms, slick against scars that weren't mine. He'd been here—standing over me while I slept, just like he'd said he did.

I'd never seen a brother surrender his colors. Yet V had deliberately wrapped his second skin around me while darkness claimed me, and the weight of what that meant hollowed out my chest.

My stomach folded in on itself as memories of Hellbound's basement tore through my mind—industrial ovens that swallowed men whole, walls painted in screams that would never leave. The room shrank around me, edges blurring as my windpipe collapsed to a pinhole. Nails scraped desperate lines down my throat, searching for air that wouldn't come.

But then that acrid warmth from his badge hit me again—ash-heavy heat carrying whispers of gunpowder and cedar. The same scent that surrounded me during every spiral he'd walked me through, my brain somehow rewiring terror into safety, poison into medicine.

Breathe, Oakley. Just breathe.

"V?" The sound barely disturbed the air, his second skin still pressed against my chest. No answer came, just the hollow echo of my vulnerability bouncing off empty walls.

The living room held only shadows where he usually lurked, each corner a taunt of his absence. In the kitchen, a single thermos waited beside a coffee pod—a silent testament to what no one else saw. The corner of my mouth pulled up involuntarily. I used to only see the monster everyone whispered about, the shadow that made hardened men flinch. But last night had shown me something different—these small rituals, tiny acts of care I'd never expected from him.

I sank into the couch, fingertips tracing the stitched emblems of his world—each patch humming with memories I didn't own but somehow understood. Victoria shredding Darrell's cut with a knife flashed behind my eyes. A cut was sacred, something earned through blood and loyalty. I followed the edge of an embroidered skull, trying to decode what this sacrifice meant.Coming from V, someone who seemed to exist outside club traditions, the gesture felt... different. Possessive yet vulnerable.

Perhaps the scariest part wasn't that he'd given me his cut. It was howsafeI felt beneath it.

Those same hands that crushed bones had steadied me last night with impossible gentleness. The contradiction made something crack inside my chest, hairline fractures in everything I thought I knew. V was everything I'd been taught to fear—the shadow that haunted our town's darkest corners, the name that made grown men go silent. Yet when panic had stripped away my defenses, he'd shown me something else entirely.

No one had ever handled my anxiety like he did. His blood dripping onto my foot—right after his fist shattered the mirror—still burned behind my eyelids. He'd caught the fractured version of me twisting in that broken glass—and tore it apart before it could finish consuming me. The way he'd stood there bleeding and unwavering, demanding I find something to like about myself while his blood pooled between us.

I was so lost in thought I didn't notice his arrival at first. The air shifted subtly—molecules rearranging themselves around something that consumed rather than existed. Then I felt it—his presence. Darkness seeped like ink under doorways, invading every crevice until there was nowhere left untouched.

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